Omar Khadr, the youngest detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was 15 when he allegedly threw a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic in Afghanistan. Now, more than seven years later, Khadr is drawing the Obama administration into a fierce debate over the propriety of putting a “child soldier” on trial.
Khadr’s father moved his family to Afghanistan and inside Osama bin Laden’s circle when Omar was 10, and his mother and sister said the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. were deserved.
This background has convinced U.N. officials, human-rights advocates and defense lawyers that Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was an indoctrinated child soldier and should be rehabilitated, not prosecuted.
But U.S. officials said they expect to go to trial at Guantanamo in July and will put Khadr before a jury of military officers on multiple war-crimes charges, including murder.
